Von Bötticher, a dominant presence in his riding boots, was smoking a cigar. He peered in the direction of the percussive crescendo of baking trays, pans and slamming cupboard doors that was coming from the kitchen. The sounds of someone cooking with a vengeance.
‘Why is Leni taking so long?’
‘Leave that poor woman alone for once.’ She stretched out in her garden chair and the skirts of her coat dress parted. She made no attempt to rearrange them. ‘Or are you utterly famished?’
Von Bötticher continued to stare morosely at a point somewhere above her head. She pressed her toes against his belly. ‘Is my big growly bear so very hungry?’
As if I wasn’t even there. Perhaps I’d have been better off playing on the lawn like the sabreurs, who were charging around in circles with the dogs at their heels. They were solidly built for twins, but they behaved like little children. I guessed their mother must be in her forties, perhaps even a little older than von Bötticher himself.
‘Egon, are you being sweet to this poor girl?’ She sized me up with her bright blue eyes. I was still wearing my hand-me-down riding togs—handed down by God knows who. Not by her, I hoped. What an indignity that would be, walking around in the skin shed by that serpent. I had taken a distinct dislike to her without really understanding why. Von Bötticher went as if to remove her feet from his lap, but then sat still with his hands cupped around her ankles. She smiled. Granted, her beauty was still intact.
‘Well? Are you sweet to her? You can be such a brute at times.’
I stood up. ‘May I be excused? I would very much like to get changed.’
‘Be quick about it,’ said von Bötticher, without turning his head. ‘Dinner is almost ready. If you run into Heinz, tell him to come too.’
From upstairs I could hear her chirping again. Clearly von Bötticher only turned jocular when I was out of earshot. I would not be gone for long, with all of two summer dresses to choose from. Strictly speaking, even this was an exaggeration: the gold-coloured satin option was actually a slip, meant to be worn under the other. Of course, I could always put on my fencing uniform and march downstairs to demand my afternoon training session. According to the schedule it should have started long ago, but clearly all appointments were off as soon as she showed her face, the woman who could make him laugh. Now they were laughing together. I closed the balcony doors. There was no way I could wear the slip on its own. Static made the satin cling to my thighs. In a flash I saw myself sitting down at the table as a gleaming Isis, clad in gold leaf. Open-mouthed astonishment: look how dazzling she is, our blessed virgin, how could we have been so blind? But no, on went the cotton dress over the top. Grit fell from my hair. That blasted desert mare had engulfed me in a cloud of sand. Would anyone notice if I undid my braids? I’d die if anyone thought I had been tarting myself up for someone else’s benefit, if anyone were to say, ‘My, haven’t you made an effort.’ This was a simple, striped summer dress, nothing special. My pinafore was too warm, my skirt was dirty—all perfectly plausible, surely? Besides, I could hardly walk around in riding gear all day. I was determined to be inconspicuous and slip lizard-like onto the terrace. No such luck. Leni was ahead of me with the tea trolley and the wheels got stuck in the gravel. She turned around and immediately began to coo, ‘Pretty as a picture! Sure you won’t catch a chill once the sun goes down? Hurry to the table now, our honoured guests are waiting. As for those strange boys, let their mother round them up. We’re not at the fairground now, for heaven’s sake. Oh look, there she goes already. On her stocking feet across the grass! Oh well, why ever not … Nothing around here surprises me any more.’
At the table, the sabreurs shoved their food into their mouths without so much as glancing at it. A toddler lets himself be fed, grinning trustingly at the world around him till he tastes what’s on his tongue and his face clouds over. With these boys, even that realization failed to dawn. They only had eyes for each other. They left the asparagus untouched and fed each other devilled eggs, a sight only I appeared to find distasteful. Their mother made no comment. Von Bötticher shook water droplets from the glasses and filled them to the brim. She tipped back the bottle when he spilled some on the tablecloth.
‘You’re keen! Can you actually see what you’re doing?’ She shot me a conspiratorial look. ‘He can’t, you know. That eye of his has affected his depth of vision, don’t you think?’
‘There is nothing wrong with my eyesight.’ Von Bötticher pushed his chair away from her. ‘With my eye. I wasn’t hit in the eye, in case you hadn’t noticed.’
Heinz came marching up to the table wearing a blacksmith’s apron. His master showed him the bottle.
‘Don’t mind if I do,’ said Heinz.
‘Whose hooves have you been trimming?’ von Bötticher asked.
‘Careful,’ said the mother, ‘there will be more spills if you don’t watch out. Heinzi, don’t you agree that Egon has trouble judging depth?’
Heinz stared at her blankly. You could almost hear the wind whistling in one ear and out the other. ‘Megaira. And I treated the crack in her left back hoof.’
They raised their glasses and drank greedily. The wine brought a flush to Heinz’s cheeks, and his paper mask became a face of flesh and blood. He gazed down at his half-empty glass as if it were a source of amusement, pulled up a chair and in a single motion shoved three stalks of asparagus and an egg onto his plate. Von Bötticher nodded approvingly. ‘Thank you. But keep those hooves greased in future. Prevention is better than cure. Why aren’t you drinking?’ He was talking to me all of a sudden. Having cast a fleeting eye over my summer dress, he said firmly, ‘You’re allowed to drink you know. It will help you get over your fright.’
‘Leave the girl be,’ said the mother. ‘You’re always picking on her. She doesn’t know whether she’s coming or going.’
‘Why don’t you leave me be, and spare me your nonsense. Or would you like me to show you how deep my vision goes? The depth of this garden, for example. I’ll knock you from one end of my estate to the other. Heinz, fetch my rapier, so I can drive this woman off my terrace. A fencer with no depth of vision, now wouldn’t that be something.’
She did not react but drank with her eyebrows raised, gazing at her stocking feet in the grass. She looked fragile. It was hard to imagine she had ever been through such a difficult birth. To say nothing of what came next! One child, fair enough. A single infant you can park on one arm while holding onto your hat with the other, but two—two boys at that—must have been hard going. Suckling both at once, like an animal.
‘The blacksmith told me cracked hooves have nothing to do with greasing,’ said Heinz. ‘But don’t worry. I’ve carved a notch in the hoof to stop the crack spreading.’
Von Bötticher shrugged irritably. He poured me a glass of wine, passing the sabreurs over. Not that they showed any interest. They behaved as if they were still getting to know each other. I had been introduced to them briefly out in the hall — Friedrich and Siegbert—but seconds later I had been unable to tell them apart. Most twins differ in height—not these two. They wore their hair the same way and the golden lock they kept flicking out of their eyes struck me as their mother’s idea. When Siegbert asked if he could go to the toilet, Friedrich leaped up too, but his mother reined him in: ‘Stay here Fritz.’ Without his brother, Friedrich barely knew what to do with himself. He sat out those few minutes looking like he might choke. Such was his plight, it pained me to look at him and he didn’t eat a thing until Siegbert returned. Together they were at their most beautiful, no doubt about it. Both had their mother’s blue eyes and flawless skin, both had a hint of golden down along the jawbone. There were differences, but even these seemed calculated. Siegbert had a mole on his left cheek, Friedrich on his right. Friedrich had the same smile as Siegbert, but it began at the opposite corner of his mouth. Siegbert revealed a chipped top tooth when he laughed, while one of Friedrich’s bottom teeth had taken a knock. They moved with chronometric precision. Their pale hands crumpled their napkins simultaneously. They even chewed in